Giving Up
by SiriusObsession
Summary: "If not…what?" she says calmly, looking straight into my eyes. I look down at the table again. "If not…then I give up," I say slowly. James/Lily One-shot


**My friend and I were reading stories to each other that we wrote back in the 2nd**** grade, so I felt the need to write, and this is the fluff I came up with. I hope you like it. This is my idea of how James and Lily got together. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. If I owned Harry Potter, Sirius would have lived, and he would have married me.**

**3 3 3 3 3 3 3**

I give up.

I've finally given up. If she doesn't love me like I think I love her, I'm going to end my stupid little game.

That's exactly what I'm going to tell her when she gets here.

"Look who it is," Sirius whispers in my ear.

I look in the direction he is, and see her. I see that beautiful red hair and soft smile………

_No James, don't get distracted. You're on a mission._

I shake my head to clear my mind, and stand up. Sirius gives me a questioning look, but looks away when I give no reply.

I walk toward Lily, my heart pounding. S We've started to become more like friends, and that will be enough for me if she doesn't love me, but I need to know if she loves me or not. I need to stop hurting myself by chasing someone who just won't chase back.

he doesn't see me, but Alice does, and the expression on her face goes from annoyance, to question, and finally settles on indifference.

I stand beside Lily and clear my throat to get her attention. She jumps slightly, and then relaxes when she looks at me. She smiles and asks, "Can I help you Potter?"

Forgetting what I'm doing, I jump into one of my automatic responses, "You could stop calling me Potter and start calling me James."

"Can I help you James?" she says, putting emphasis on my name. It sounds so amazing coming from her mouth.

I suddenly remember my mission, but I realize this isn't the kind of thing I want to discuss in front of Alice. "Um, I, uh……" I mumble.

Sirius suddenly swoops in and puts his arm around Alice's shoulders. She shoots him a bitter look of disgust, and he removes it.

"Hello ladies," he says in the voice that I recognize as his persuasive voice. He's here to help.

He looks at me, silently asking what he needs me to do. I look at Alice and then jerk my head to the side, hoping he'll understand that I need Alice to leave.

He smiles and nods.

"Alice," he says, dragging her name out in that same persuasive tone.

"Black," she says, matching his tone mockingly.

"Come with me for a second, will you?" he says, looking at her in a begging way.

"Why should I?" she answers bitterly.

"Ouch!" he says, putting a hand over his heart, "I'm hurt that you don't trust that what I need is important."

Alice merely raises her eyebrows at him in a way that clearly says she isn't going to fall for his charm.

Sirius rolls his eyes at her and begs, "Please?"

Alice sighs. "I'm sure you won't stop pestering me until I say yes, so whatever it is, let's just get it over with."

She stands and starts walking away from the table, towards where Peter and Remus are sitting.

I raise my eyebrows at Sirius, silently asking what he's up to. He just smiles and winks, which scares me, but that's probably why he did it.

I take a seat beside Lily, who is bent over her homework. Once she lifts her hand away from the parchment to think, I take the quill from her, and push her book to the side.

She puts her elbows on the table and puts her chin in her hands, and looks at me. I check around us quickly to make sure no one is listening in, and I start talking in a rush, looking down at the table, trying to avoid her gaze.

"Listen Lily, I know it's been nice that I've stopped bothering you about going out with me, but I just can't take it any more. I can't stop hurting myself like this. I think I may love you, and I have to know if you might love me too. If not……" I trailed off.

I look up, afraid of what her reaction will be. She's looking at me like she expects me to say something more, and I realize that I didn't finish my last sentence.

"If not……what?" she says calmly, looking straight into my eyes.

I look down at the table again.

"If not……then I give up," I say slowly.

I look at her face again, and I can tell that she's thinking. Her eyes look like she thinks that if she can get them to look inside, she'll know what she's thinking, and she's biting her bottom lip in concentration.

Finally, she stands up.

"We need a more private place to talk," she says quietly.

I hold my hand out for her to take, but she just shakes her head. I start toward the boys' dormitories, and she follows.

We climb the stairs quickly and quietly, hardly breathing. When we get to where the staircase branches off to the 7 different dorms, I lead her to mine.

As soon as we're inside the room alone, she takes a deep breath and looks at me with such a pained expression, it breaks my heart. This isn't going to be good news.

"James, listen. I don't love you. I don't think I ever will, and I have to say, I'm proud of you for finally having the strength to let this crush go."

I wonder if she realizes how easy it is to read her face. I can tell she isn't proud of me for letting it go, she's wondering what's wrong with her that made me let it go.

"That's all there is to say James," she says when I don't answer.

I nod silently.

"I'm sorry," she says, obviously trying to fill the awkward silence.

I shake my head.

"Nothing to be sorry about. There's just one thing, Lily." I say. I take a step toward her. There's less than a foot in between us now. She doesn't notice.

"And that is?" she asks quietly.

I take the last small step toward her, closing the gap. With all the courage in me, I lean down and kiss her softly on the lips. She gasps slightly, but doesn't do anything else.

I move an inch closer, deepening the kiss. She doesn't do anything. At first I wonder if I'm a complete idiot for doing this, but something suddenly reassures me.

She kisses back.

At first, I freeze from shock, wondering if I dozed off and it was all a dream, but I put my arms around her and I know she really is there, and I kiss her back.

She wraps her arms around my neck, and we stay there for several minutes, forgetting the rest of the world.

Then a sick realization hits me.

As soon as we walk back into the real world, it'll be like none of this happened. The whole point of coming in here was so that I could tell her I was done hurting myself.

It's sick that this wonderful, amazing kiss could ruin my life.

As much as I hate to, I pull away. Lily gasps at what just happened. She's just as shocked as I am.

"Lily," I whisper, "what just happened?"

"I don't know," she whispers back.

I can feel tears coming.

"I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to, not even the Marauders. I'll just live my life, hurting myself, pretending it never happened. That's the way it has to be, isn't it?"

I see doing a poor job of fighting back her own tears, and I can't blame her. I had basically told her this was her fault. I'm such an idiot!

I turn around, so she can't see me start to cry, and try to get myself under control. I feel her hand on my shoulder, I would know it was her anywhere, because it always sends a shock through my entire body. She turns me to face her. Tears are rolling down her face, and I want nothing more that to make them stop.

"No," she whispers.

"I don't understa-," I start, but she cuts me off.

"It doesn't have to be that way," she says, "I don't care who knows, I DO love you, James."

I go from upset to ecstatic so fast, it makes my head spin. I wrap my arms around her waist and spin her around, which makes her giggle uncontrollably.

When I finally set her down, we're probably both dizzy, so we go and sit down together on one of the beds. I take her hand as we sit there in the stillness. We're both grinning like idiots, but it doesn't matter. We're the only ones here, and we couldn't be happier about it. We've almost totally forgotten about the outside world.

Almost.

"Lils?"

"Yeah?"

I turn to look her in the eyes.

"Are you ready to go out there?"

She sighs, looking down at her lap.

"I understand if you aren't," I say quickly, trying to make her more comfortable.

"No, no," she says, shaking her head, "I'm ready."

We stand together, still holding hands, and we make our way down to the common room.

When we step into the light, Sirius is the first to notice us. And being Sirius, he lets out a loud wolf-whistle.

Everyone turns to look at him, but he redirects their attention quickly.

"Now, now. Don't look at me. Look at the lovely new couple over there," he says, pointing in our direction.

Now, every eye in the common room is on us. We stand there in awkward silence until suddenly, the entire common room is cheering.

I look at Lily, and she's blushing furiously and looking down at her feet. I lift her chin up so that she's facing me.

"What are you thinking?" I ask.

"I'm thinking I'm going to kill Sirius when this is all over," she replies with an evil grin.

I smile and say, "I was thinking the exact same thing."


End file.
